Becoming A Licensed Clinical Social Worker

There are several goals that I hope to achieve by pursuing a graduate degree in Social Work. Pursuing a MSW will provide me with the knowledge, tools, and skills-set that will be fundamental to the achievement my career goals outlined below.

Experiencing hardships and my resilience to overcome them is the main reason I chose to pursue a Master’s of Social Work (MSW) degree. My familiarity with asking for resources, as a former foster youth, a number of my interactions involved social workers. I utilized resources as a transition aged youth; and I believe it was those same resources that kept me focused on my future and school. I became homeless at eighteen years of age and it was transitional housing, through The Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) that gave me hope and direction.

Many individuals at some point during their lives require mental health services in order to enjoy life. Clinical social workers constitute the biggest group of mental health care workers who provide the majority of therapy and counseling services. For instance, professionals aid individuals to ascertain solutions to issues that fall along a continuum from the lack of independent living skills and capacity to cope with quotidian to severe depression and mental illness. Steve Taylor, Clinical Manager at Preferred Family Healthcare located in Trenton, Missouri. Now occupying a laudable position that inspires and encourages students to stay in college and work towards giving back to the community as a social worker. Taylor on many occasions explains the duties of his case managers in a simple but effective educational quote, “teach a man to fish and he will never go hungry, give him fish he will be hungry again.” Instead of doing everything for a person, you are teaching how to do for themselves; this is a very effective way to educate mental health individuals.

. The pursuit of an MSW has been a passion of mine and is a direct result of my personal experience during the past few years, as well as my inner desire to make a difference in people’s lives. More specifically, I would like to further my knowledge and experiences in the field of Social Work by having a focus on advanced generalist social work with an emphasis on medical social work. Once I have earned my MSW, I am interested in working in a hospital/hospice setting. My goal is to pursue working with individuals and families in a time of medical crisis, with a result of improving their quality of life in a hospital setting and upon discharge from medical care.

Clinical social work is not something that you just “get into” you have to think about this type of career. This profession can take quite a toll on your mental health because you’re not allowed to speak about your clients. Except with another therapist that works with the client. It can be hard to get advice or just talk about anything without breaking certain rules. Because of that clinical social workers end up going to therapy themselves to be able to talk and get advice. There are very few people who become clinical social workers (CSW’s). The people that consider becoming a Clinical Social Worker will be need to go through a lot of work to become one.

There are many different jobs in direct services but the job I would choose would be a clinical social worker. There are many different aspects that draw me to this career.

When I think about a career I think about a lifetime. I imagine waking up every morning and being excited to go to work. Qualities I look for in a career is that the schedule is established, in an office type of environment, I am interacting with individuals, makes a difference in people’s lives, helps others, and pay is sufficient to provide for my family. I grew up in a home where communication lacked and having a conversation about our feelings or important events in our lives was difficult with my parents. I always wished I had a parent that I could go to for advice and understanding. So I have hopes that my career could possibly help me better communicate and listen to my kids and husband. Along with giving them the security that I will

Social workers seek to enhance the capacity of people to address their own needs. The mission of the social work profession is rooted in a set of core values of service, social justice, dignity and worth of the person, importance of human relationships, integrity, and competence. Clinical social work is a practice specialty of the social work profession and lives by these same core values. The knowledge base of a licensed clinical social worker encompasses all of which defines a social worker in addition to that of a clinical mental health professional. The practice knowledge of a licensed clinical social worker integrates theories of social, biological and psychological development also known as biopsychosocial. A licensed clinical social worker is a healthcare profession structured by the theories, prevention and treatment in methods of providing mental healthcare services. Emphasis is placed primarily on services in psychosocial diagnosis, assessment and treatment, consultation, client advocacy, evaluation and even limited research. LCSW may choose to branch of in various specialties. Some prefer to work with families others with only children. There are also those who specialize in geriatrics or substance abuse. Some choose to work as school social workers and some in the new field of military social worker.

My interactions with those around me while volunteering and working in my community, synagogue, and camps, have led me to an interest in the social work field. Through these experiences I had the opportunity to met individuals who struggled with the challenge of having themselves or a family member suffering with a mental health issue. Repeatedly, I saw that the resources to meet these challenges of life were not accessible and the tasks of obtaining treatment and seeking out the appropriate support for these issues was difficult. I have always had a passion for helping others and I want to translate that passion into a career. I believe a career in social work will allow me to help individuals find methods to cope with their struggles and facilitate change in the

This is the reason I am pursuing my Master of Social Work (MSW), advocating for clients consist of caring, respecting and being mindful of individuals and their differences. Social workers encourage change and provided the resources necessary to support this change. Instead of judging and demeaning someone’s circumstance, as my paternal grandmother did, I want to invoke success, despite a person’s

For several years now, I have felt drawn to support and strengthen the communities similar to my own. From an early age I witnessed how social workers can help those struggling to find the resources they need to foster change. Although it took sometime to trace my passion for helping those in need, upon reflection, I am able to clearly see a pattern of people, agencies and institutions that provide the additional support I need to be successful. Understanding these patterns has not only impacted my experience, but also serves as the primary reason I have chosen to pursue a career in social work.

When I think about social workers, I think of people who have a heart and desire to serve those around them. They are the individuals who stay up late thinking about how to best serve their clients and who pull together resources that many individuals would overlook. I believe that obtaining a Masters of Social Work will best help me work with my future clients. From the courses offered at the graduate level, I will be better trained on how to work with clients who have experienced trauma, loss and displacement. I am proud of the work I have done in my undergraduate work at Huntington University, but I think there is more that I want to understand about social systems, community development, and intervention strategies that will make me

In the future if I decide to seek to pursue a second Master in social work, I will really need to practice empathy in the work I do. The clients I will be working with are suffering from losses, illness, poverty, and institutional injustices that often require intensive treatment or service planning. For treatment to be meaningful, I would need to lay a foundation that will set the clients up for success and create trust in our relationship. Have the ability to reflect an understanding of my client’s situation through assessment, intervention, and even during termination. This can increase the sustainability of potential outcomes. As a social worker I would want to help create or plant a seed of change by developing client self-awareness, efficacy,

Working as a clinical social worker in the Washington, DC area with patients with life-limiting illness such as Huntington’s disease, Parkinson’s, Multiple Sclerosis and Lou Gehrig ’s disease (ALS), has taught me to be eternally dedicated to a person-focused approaches to therapy supports with these patients and their family. I had considered this concept as broad theory in the past that held me to standard of consideration of the patient’s ideas. Now I am even more convinced than ever that the patient is my most salient guide in their own treatment. My work with patients has taught me to listen and learn from each patient, and let them determine their treatment goals as a practice.

Social Work is a diverse field, which grants the worker the chance to touch a wide kind of people. The range of social work is widespread that a worker could work with one population or many, depending on the workers ' goals. In addition, it permits the worker with the ability to divulge into their life passions. An individual requires a passion for the work they do because it is what pushes the desire to help. It is important to explore what one is passionate about while embarking on the journey of becoming a social worker. Obtaining an MSW degree helps to insure that the person who possesses it will be able to explore the many pathways of social work. An individual with an MSW could become a professor, do clinical social work, forensic social work or throw their hat into the political arena. With all these different areas, narrowing down to one pathway might prove difficult. While the goal might be to participate in every path that social work offers, one could still find sole passion in a single population. One 's passion can be discovered in a variety of ways. Their passion could have emerged as a child, through their education, through their job or through their internships.